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Thanks for the heads-up. I live near Boston so Portland is not that far away, but I doubt I can make it by Sept. 3 when the exhibit ends. Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed seeing Normandy when I visited this past June.

Hi Andrew London,

“You might like to read this as background to the Belle Epoque era of Deauville and Cabourg, the town where Marcel Proust took his vacations.”

Wow, what a great blog. You must be a professional writer, eh? I recently tackled Proust by listening to the CD Swann’s Way, Part 1 of Remembrance of Times Past. Truthfully, I found it hard to follow. Some passages were exquisite- rich with color and humor – but I couldn’t follow the narrative easily.

I will give Proust another try though because of his place in French literature. I recently heard Edmund de Waal, who wrote THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES, revel in his devotion to Proust. De Waal’s ancestor the art collector Charles Ephrussi was a contemporary of Proust during the Belle Epoque.

You also wrote:

“Like Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead, Diaghilev too has a beloved nanny and Bakst paints her in high contrast to the opulence of Diaghilev’s attire- he sort of grounds his friend Sergei, brings him down from the flights of fancy which he normally inhabits; perhaps a reminder to him that the majority of Russians struggle to buy meat, let alone purchase a ticket to the Ballets Russes. The nanny is Moscow to his Petersburg.”

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED is one of my favorite books. Also the painting of Diaghilev and his nanny was featured in PARIS THE LUMINOUS YEARS 1905-1930, a documentary which was recommended on this board. It covers the post-Impressionist art scene in Paris including the Ballet Russes.